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The county medical examiner testified that Whiting had died of an overdose of drugs, including methaqualone, Benadryl and a Librium-type drug. However, a pharmacologist hired by Whiting's mother said that the amount of methaqualone in Whiting's bloodstream need not have been fatal. Left unexplained was how Whiting's blood came to be on a pillowcase, towel, tissues and the washbasin in his own room, as well as on a blue sweater he had apparently been wearing. Also unaccounted for were the severe cut on the back of his head and scratches on his stomach, chest and knuckles. The inquest was adjourned for a week awaiting a report from Dr. Thomas Noguchi, chief medical examiner of Los Angeles County. Whiting's mother, a white-haired woman in a woolen cap and fraying coat, attended the inquest and said she was unsatisfied with the testimony.
In some ways Whiting's life was as mysterious as his death. A former TIME correspondent (1968-1971) who grew up in Washington and graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, Whiting, 26, loved to surround himself with Gatsby-like glamour and intrigue. Though not wealthy, he would lunch by himself with a bottle of champagne and fly to London to have a suit made—then fly back again the next week for a second fitting. When he became TIME'S Hollywood correspondent and began hobnobbing with stars, Whiting's fantasies became reality—for a time, anyway. During an interview with Miles he became infatuated with her and soon quit his job to live with Sarah and her husband, Playwright-Screenwriter Robert Bolt, in Surrey, England. Though his ostensible purpose was to write a book on Sarah, he made himself so useful that he became her business manager, factotum, and confidant.
Whiting's erratic behavior eventually annoyed the Bolts, and they tried to move him out of their lives. At this point, Sarah claims, he attempted suicide by taking an overdose of drugs, and they kept him with them. Whiting once wrote in a London magazine that Miles was the "greatest dame since Eve." The title of the article: Sarah Miles: The Cool Man-Eater.